Ok If Married

Recently, the Tonight Show changed hosts. Jay Leno had been the host for 17 years. He handed the number one late night talk show over to Conan O’Brian. Our young adults know this. Before Leno there was Johnny Carson, who hosted the Tonight Show for 30 years. Carson had several characters he made famous. One was Carnac the Magnificent. Carson would wear this oversize turban and Carnac had the gift of giving the answer before the question. For example, it would go like this: Carnac would hold the envelope containing the question up to his forehead and give the answer. The answer is, “Yes, dear.” Then Carnac would open the envelope and read the question: “What does a husband say to get in the last word?”

In this section of 1 Corinthians Paul is answering questions they put in a letter to him. We don’t have their questions. We have Paul’s answers. To properly understand Paul’s answer we must go back to Corinth and understand the context of these Christians. In this chapter Paul is addressing the issue of marriage, singleness, and sex. This is a Q & A time with their pastor. Paul is not trying to give a fully developed treatment on these subjects. He is answering a specific question and issue. For a full treatment you will need to include a study of passages like Ephesians, Colossians, Matthew 19, and Genesis.

There are two big issues that help us properly interpret what Paul is saying in this chapter. One is the immorality of Corinth. Sexual immorality was rampant in Corinth. The major religion of the city promoted prostitution. Every evening the 1,000 temple prostitutes of Aphrodite would come down into the city to ply their trade. Homosexuality was just another alternative lifestyle. Corinth was so open about its sexuality that to call a woman a “Corinthian girl” was to call her a prostitute.

I was struck by how open we have become about discussing sexuality when I was reading my commentaries. I have some commentaries that were produced in the 1960’s. But the references in these verses were so vague, you would have never guessed Paul was talking about sex. It would have been interesting to hear how a preacher would have dealt with these verses 50 years ago. Paul is a perfect balance between direct and discreet speech.

Not only the gross immorality of Corinth shapes Paul’s answer, but so does an arrogant super spirituality. The previous passage, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, deals with a group who claim they can have sex outside of marriage with prostitutes and it doesn’t harm their walk with God. Paul comes down very hard on that group. Sex is only for the heterosexual married. Sex before marriage and sex outside of marriage is always wrong. Flee sexual immorality.

As a backlash to this blatant disobedience, another group is teaching if you are a spiritual Christian there is no sex even in marriage. This lifestyle of denial will be confronted later in 1 Corinthians in the debate over eating meat offered to idols. To not participate in anything ungodly, a group had become vegetarians because of the concern that they might pick up some hamburger meat in the market that had been offered as a sacrifice to a demonic idol. It’s not so different from Christians who don’t send their children to public schools or don’t own a TV set. What’s motivating these Christians in the church at Corinth is a desire to be godly, Christ-like.

I’m not saying if present day Christian’s home school or send their children to a private Christian school or don’t own a TV that they are wrong. I am saying these Corinthian Christians have the same motivation to protect themselves from a very sinful world in order to be godly. The problem with the Christians in Corinth is they went too far. They believed they should not have sex in marriage. This is what Paul is correcting. The simple answer to their question about sex in marriage for Christians is sex in marriage promotes godliness.

So, what does that mean? It means . . .

I. HAVE MORE SEX NOT LESS (1 COR. 7:1-2)

Read.

Paul refers to the letter they sent, and many believe this statement that it is good for a man not to marry is something the Corinthians are saying not Paul. His answer to their slogan—and the remedy for going to prostitutes in 6:12-20—is for husbands and wives have marital relations with one another. I’m saying that Paul’s advice to the married Christians in Corinth is to have more sex not less.

I found this article from the London Times, November 2, 2007, titled: “Not Tonight, Dear . . . In Fact, Not Ever.” It began:

Emily, 37, is a successful solicitor with a husband and two-year-old son. To her friends, she doubtless lives a charmed existence. But recently she sat across from me, Dr. Pam Spurr, a sex expert, in a life coaching session. She was very distressed. Having just discovered that her husband of five years had had an affair, she felt that her world had disintegrated. She’d been a good partner, hadn’t she? She was caring and hard-working, wasn’t she?